UK Baristas Smash Aussie World Record at London Coffee Festival 2011

A team of more than 100 UK baristas has broken the world record for ‘the number of espressos made in an hour’ by producing 12,003 espressos at a rate of 3.33 espresso shots per second.

‘The London Belle Baristas’ team, using 31 commercial espresso machines, eclipsed all previous records in front of London Coffee Festival attendees at 6:30pm on Saturday, 9 April. The official Guinness World Record was held by a Polish barista team with 3,386 in March 2010, but an unofficial record was claimed by a team from Brisbane, Australia in October last year making 5,061 espressos.

The first ever London Coffee Festival, which attracted more than 7,000 attendees over the weekend in the Old Truman Brewery of Brick Lane, is part of UK Coffee Week and aims to raise funds and awareness for clean drinking water for communities in coffee producing countries around the world.

‘This record is a tremendous achievement and really shows the rest of the world London’s leadership in artisan ‘Third Wave’ coffee culture. London offers best-in-class food and coffee with many visitors coming here to learn from trends in this great city.

In the spirit of competition, and in the run up to the 2012 games, we will be taking award this to Mayor Boris Johnson. Perhaps he may be able to get our Barista championships be featured at next year’s Olympics.”

Taking part in the record for the London Belle Barista team were representatives from many of the leading companies across the entire coffee industry including: Costa Coffee, Union Hand-Roasted, Lavazza, La Cimbali, La Marzocco, Alpro Soya, United Coffee, Joe & The Juice, Bean About Town and a host of independent coffee shops from London and other parts of the UK.

The record attempt was made in the presence of Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) officials and expert witnesses from the coffee industry and will formally submitted to the Guinness World Records team on Monday.

**Update**
The team in charge of the world record documentation has double and triple checked the numbers, and the final espresso tally has been recalculated to 12,003 (not 12,005 as previously advised).

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